System and method for composite display

ABSTRACT

An apparatus to allow a prospective customer of articles of clothing to try on one or more articles of clothing without actually putting the articles of clothing on his or her person. This is accomplished by means of an electronically produced full figure image which is composed of the customer&#39;s head and a model&#39;s body, the model&#39;s body attired in articles of clothing to be presented. The composite image is viewed by the customer on a television screen and this gives the effect of the customer being attired in the articles of clothing presented.

BACKGROUND AND BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The invention disclosed herein is an improvement of my prior invention,U.S. Pat. No. 4,261,012, issued Apr. 7, 1981. The prior art discussed inthat patent is still considered to be the most relevant prior art.

This invention relates to a system of the type enabling a subject usingthe system to view a composite picture showing part of the subjecthimself (or herself) together with some separate article or object asthough the subject were actually wearing such article. For instance,such a system when used in ladies bridal salon, might allow a customerto sample the effects of various wedding gowns and choose the mostbecoming one without actually having to try them on.

Systems of this general kind have already been proposed and haveutilized various optical expedients for producing the compositepictures. However, none of such prior art devices so far as known toapplicant, have been entirely satisfactory.

Perhaps the simplest type of system used employs a semi-transparentmirror positioned before the subject, with means for positioning theactual articles to be displayed, at a suitable position behind themirror, so that a subject when looking at the semi-transparent mirrorwill see the reflected image of his or her face or figure, together withthe article, as seen by transparency through the semi-transparent mirrorso that it will appear to be naturally joined with the reflected image.Systems of this kind are advantageously simply, but have the seriousdrawback that they require a large number of articles, samples or modelsto be physically present, and the system will in many instances involvea prohibited amount of storage space.

Other composite display systems have accordingly been proposed in whichthese difficulties are eliminated through the use of projection slidesfor displaying the images of the articles in the composite pictures,thereby dispensing with the need, for a physical presence of the actualarticles. Slides of course are much easier to store in large numbers andmore convenient to manipulate, than are the articles themselves.

Another system requires a black draped subject looking through asemi-transparent mirror, the reflection of her own fact in the mirror isformed on the plane of a screen, together with the projected image of aslide formed by a projector on the screen. The slides represent headlessmodels wearing different articles of clothing whereby the subjectappears to see composite pictures of herself as though wearing thearticles.

Although this system will allow a full figure composite image, it doesso under conditions which are not entirely comfortable for the viewingsubject, and has serious drawbacks. For the system to work, it must beused in a darkened room which many people find uncomfortable especiallyin the presence of strangers (salespeople/system operators).Furthermore, the subject must sit with a black cape on her body from theneck down keeping her head fixed in a preset position so as not tomisalign the composite image, additionally, there is an inherentinability to produce a composite image of dark or black skinned people.In producing the reflection of the viewer's face from the mirror, ablack cape is used to black out the viewer's body below the neck, thisability of the mirror not to reflect the blacked out part of theviewer's body also makes it impossible for the mirror to reflectadequately a dark or black skinned face. Further, in order to have acommon background for the composite image as seen in the mirror, theslides are photographed against a black background which will not allowa high quality (detail) reproduction in the slides of black articles ofclothing. With this system, the operator attempts to correspond the bodysize of the projected image (model's body) to the viewer's body by meansof a zoom lens on the projector. Inherently, a zoom lens will increaseor decrease the size of its projected image proportionately in alldirections. Therefore, with this apparatus, it is impossible to create ashort fat image or a tall, thin image but rather only a short thin, tallfat or a well proportioned image in between which may or may notcorrespond with the viewer's own body. Another drawback of this systemis the large amount of space it requires making its use impracticalexcept in very large stores.

The prior art in this field is believed to be best represented by U.S.Pat. No. 1,133,311, wherein the subject's head and a garment ar composedon a mirror; U.S. Pat. No. 2,722,600, superimposition of two separateimages on a common screen; U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,730,565 and 3,576,945,composite pictures where background scenes are blended with a separateimage; U.S. Pat. No. 3,398,664, directed to an automatic photoprocessor,and U.S. Pat. No. 3,849,596, directed to various techniques for using atelevision camera for automatic alignment of two images side-by-side.

None of the foregoing references teach a system which is compact, allowsthe customer to be photographed in an open area and allows the compositepicture to be proportioned along at least one of two axes such that theimage of the model's body can be adjusted to be proportioned to thecustomer's head.

My invention encompasses a composite display system which overcomes thedifficulties of the prior art and which is convenient to use andoperate, will enable a full figure, full size display under confortableconditions for the customer viewer, can be readily adjusted and operatedby the system operator in order to view sequentially a series ofcomposite full figure picture displays at a rate as fast or slow asdesired.

My invention is broadly directed to a system for displaying to acustomer, composite views including part of the customer together withthe image of an article as though said article were actually associatedwith or worn by the customer, which system comprises means to record anddisplay a portion of a body of a customer; means to store a plurality ofimages, which images when combined with the recorded portion of thecustomer will provide a full figure display; means to vary thedimensions of the stored image; means to combine and display thecombined images.

The method of my invention of providing a proportioned full figure imagewhich includes: displaying at least a portion of a customer on a medium,recording at least a portion of an article of clothing on a medium,combining the images to produce a full figure image, scaling of one ofthe images with respect to the other to provide a proportional fullfigured composite image.

The present invention as with the prior invention overcomes the priorart problems discussed therein and, further, this invention has thefollowing advantages or improvements over my prior invention, namely,there is greater flexibility in scaling the height and width of thecustomer's body. That is, the whole X and/or Y and/or any portion ordifferent portions of the X and/or Y can be scaled. The presentinvention, is not necessarily limited to making the subject's bodytaller or shorter, fatter or thinner; the model's body which originallymodeled the garment can be scaled to the customer's overallmeasurements. Preferably, this is accomplished by stretching orshrinking horizontally rasters based on a calculated stretch factor. Forexample, I can scale the model which is stored in memory to the bust,hip, waist, and height measurements of the customer. A furtherimprovement is that the skin tone of the model can be adjusted to morenearly simulate the skin tone of the customer.

In the preferred embodiment the system comprises a video camera, a framegrabber, a CPU, an image buffer and a television monitor. thevideocamera takes the image of the customer which is digitized by andstored in the frame grabber and ultimately displayed on a video screen.Pre-recorded articles of clothing to be combined with the image of thecustomer are stored. Through use of the central processing unit, atleast one of the images, preferably that of the article of clothing arevaried at least along horizontal and vertical axes to provide aproportioned full figured composite.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING

FIG. 1 is a block and pictorial diagram representing the preferredembodiment of my invention;

FIG. 2 is a schematic illustrating the composite on a screen.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

Referring to FIG. 1, a television camera or video camera 10, such as aJVC Model KY 1900 U CHL 6 communicates with a frame grabber 12, such asa OCTEK 2200. The camera 10 records the customer 14 to provide a firstimage 16; see FIG. 2(a).

Various articles of clothing are modeled to provide second images. Theimages are coded and stored in a memory 18, such as a DEC RXO2; via aCPU 20, such as a DEC LSI-11/23. As many recordings of various articlesof clothing as desired are taken and stored in sequence in the memory18. The second images from the memory 20 are input to an image buffer 22such as an AED 512. The image in the image buffer 22 is scaled and theoutput is displayed on a video screen 24.

The control of the computer 20 is accomplished through instructions. Theinstructions are written in terms of the particular mode of operationdesired. The computer thus has stored in its memory the programs orroutines corresponding to each mode or operation of the computer. It iswell known to those skilled in the art, that the computer comprisessuitable controls, storage and computational units for performing thevarious arithmatic and logical functions on data which it processes inditigal form. Any standard computer language consistent with thecapability of the computer can be used for the instructions. Theroutines are not described in detail, since they can be written in anydesired notations, formats or sequences, depending upon the particularprogram being utilized, computer language, etc. For the specificcomputer of the preferred embodiment, the manufacturer's handbook setsforth the necessary program which includes the sequence of internalinterconnections which have been added by the preparation and loading ofthe program into the internal memory of the computer.

It will only a rare instance when the view of the customer's head andneck will be proportional with the previously recorded view of thearticle of clothing modeled from the neck down. Therefore, the verticaland horizontal adjustments are necessary, as distinguished from thoseadjustments which are commonly found with a zoom lens. For example, thecustomer may be a size 16 and the model a size 8; preferably, horizontalrasters are scaled so that a true proportional full figure compositewill be presented to the viewer-customer.

With the above system, it is clear it is not dependent on black ineither the background or as a means of eliminating any portion of thecustomer's body below the neck. Further, this system can be viewed undernormal interior lighting conditions much the same as home televisionviewing thereby providing for more comfortable environment for both thecustomer and the salesperson. Also, once the customer's image has beenrecorded by the video camera, the customer is free to assume anyposition or location comfortable and convenient for viewing the displayscreen. Still further, because there is no need to record or photographthe articles of clothing against a black background the clothing can beshown against backgrounds which enhance the color of the clothing. Inthis regard, the system if so designed could allow the composite imageto be superimposed over a background which would be a natural settingfor the use of the clothing displayed, like an evening gown displayedover the background of a formal ballroom, such as employing thetechniques disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,576,945. Lastly, although all ofthe components have been shown in block diagram form, all components maybe housed in a single cabinet which requires only a few square feet offloor space, will need no special areas or darkened rooms and can beplaced anywhere convenient for its use in any sized department or store.

Referring to FIG. 2, in the operation of the invention, after allcomponents are actuated a memory of articles or second images 26 iscreated. This is accomplished simply by photographing or picturing insequence a model with the articles of clothing to be stored. The videosignals from the TV camera are grabbed by the image grabber 12. Theimage in the image grabber is composed of horizontal lines ofinformation called `rasters`. There is one image for each article ofclothing and each image is in color. Each image is coded and stored inmemory 18 raster by raster. Also, the clothing size of the second imageis identified (coded) as a standard. Further, each image stored in thememory is the same size top to bottom.

The customer 16 then is viewed by the color TV camera 10; see FIG. 2(a).The customer's clothes size is fed to the computer 20 and if thecustomer's size does not match the standard size the computer calculatesa horizontal stretch or squeeze factor to be applied to the storedimages so that depending upon whether the customer's size is smaller orlarger respectively, the stored image may be proportioned properly tomatch with the customer's size. The customer selects an image, say aparticular bridal gown and the coding information for this image isinput into the computer. The image of the customer is displayed on thescreen 24 and that portion below the client's neck (indexed at aspecific raster location) may or may not be shown as originallyphotographed. The horizontal stretch or shrink factor is applied to thestored image on a raster by raster basis, and the stretched or squeezedresult is fed to the display device 24, overriding the image of theclient up to but not over the face at the specified raster location.

More particularly, the article of clothing chosen by the customer isread into the computer memory. Starting at the specified raster of theimage (near the neck area), each raster is stretched or shrunkhorizontally by the stretch factor, and a new raster calculated.

Two alternatives may be used in this step. First, a simplyre-partitioning of the raster using fractions of pixels according to thestretch factor; or secondly, a low pass filtering and sampling accordingto the pixel spacing; preferably, two dimensional filtering(incorporating the rasters above and below the current raster) shouldcontribute less distortion to the stretch image.

Each new computer raster is loaded into the display device on top of thecustomer image and the next rasters are computed in sequence until thecomposite image is complete as shown in FIG. 2b.

Alternatively, the first image can be input in digitized form into theimage buffer 22 and not initially displayed at 24. The second image isoverlayed or combined electronically with the first image and thecomposite image is scanned out and displayed. A separate buffer may beused to store the first image and the images from both buffers combinedand displayed.

Having described my invention, what I now claim is:
 1. A system fordisplaying a full figure composite display of two separate images whichcomrises:means to record as a first image at least a portion of acustomer's body; means to record as a second image at least a portion ofclothing; means to store the second image; means to display at least aportion of the first image; means to determine if the stored image isproportional to the displayed portion of the first image; means to varythe dimensions of the stored image and output the same, the dimensionsvaried based on the first image; and, means to display the stored imagein combination with and contiguous to the displayed first image wherebya fully proportioned full figure composite is displayed.
 2. The systemof claim 1 whereinthe means to record includes a video camera; andwherein the means to store the second image includes means to store saidimage on a raster by raster basis.
 3. The system of claim 2 wherein themeans to vary includes means to expand or shrink horizontally the secondstored image by rasters.
 4. The system of claim 1 which includes meansto record a plurality of second images.
 5. The system of claim 1 whereinthe first image is a fixed image and the second image is one of aplurality of stored images and which includes means to display saidfirst image with one of the plurality of second images in timedsequence.
 6. A method for displaying a full figure composite display oftwo separate images which includes:recording as a first image at least aportion of a customer's body; recording as a second image at least aportion of clothing; storing the second image; displaying at least aportion of the first image; determining if the stored image isproportional to the displayed portion of the first image; varying ifrequired the dimensions of the stored image and outputting the same, thedimensions varied based on the size of the first image; and displayingthe stored image in combination with and contiguous to the displayedfirst image whereby a fully proportioned full figure composite isdisplayed.
 7. The method of claim 6 which includesdigitizing the secondimage; and storing the second image in memory on a raster by rasterbasis.
 8. The method of claim 6 wherein the step of varyingincludesexpanding or shrinking horizontally the second stored image byraster.